it's nine pm here in moscow the top stories in the week palestine moves up in the international arena becoming a un recognized observer state which could allow it to pursue israel now over claims of war crimes more on that ahead. egypt's power struggle spirals rival forces gather strength to a showdown over the draft constitution and the president's self-imposed supremest authority. plus watch this space of more wiki leaks on the way it seems journalists sounds promising more ground shaking revelations next year as he talks to us at r.t. . the

big news of the week the palestinians were a step closer to being fully recognized as independent the u.n. voted to upgrade the administration's diplomatic status to a nonmember observer state a middle east correspondent paula slee reports now on how the move my signal a change in the way the world sees israeli actions. it might have been a foregone conclusion but that didn't dampen the jubilation on the streets of palestine. overwhelming support for upgraded palestinian state has to a nonmember observer state in the un one hundred thirty eight voting in favor nine against forty one abstentions its import of political and legal victory to hold israel accountable in a practical way on its violations the national law and its violations of the rights of the palestinian people especially on the expansion of illegal settlements

palestinians can now apply to join the international criminal court and other global organizations giving them better bargaining chips in dealing with israel. but it came at a price within hours tel aviv announced it was building three thousand more homes in the west bank a sure sign that the situation on the ground won't change overnight the buzz does it's not a step forward it's a step aside or even you know a step. back that's really a pity the international community gives hand to this violation the u.s. was also quick to cast a cloud over the palestinian party mood the unfortunate and counterproductive resolution at the united nations general assembly that just passed today grand pronouncements will soon see. and the palestinian people will wake up tomorrow and find that little about their lives has changed but washington's unflinching support for tel aviv has separated from some of its longtime allies in the un more and more

countries are turning their back on decades of negotiations that have led nowhere what has changed has been the continual failure of the us controlled so-called peace process to lead to any kind of end to occupation and what i think was the catalyst here is that political pressure on other matters and on the palestinian authority from their own population from their own people who were saying you know what we've had twenty one years of failed diplomacy we're not looking for twenty two we want something different and that something means a real shift in policy first and foremost the consensus on the international stage is that israel needs to stop building settlements deemed illegal by the un and certainly be international community you know is a horse. a provocation which heroes of course are going to run so

called. it was a little more than a year ago that palestinian president mahmoud abbas came to the un in a bid for statehood since then tel aviv and washington's approach to the middle east conflict has gained them an ever shrinking minority of supporters the irony is that the bid was passed on the watches of israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu and his rightwing foreign minister avigdor lieberman it was last year that lieberman boasted in the united nations that the moral majority of western states was with israel it now turns out he was wrong and whether israel once it or not it's increasingly clear that something needs to give policy r.t. tel aviv but earlier israeli college lecturer mary told me the thursday as you would move was directed against israel. the majority of israelis including this government by the way have stated clearly that they'd like to see palestine independent and both of us understand that there is a difference between saying palestine independent and doing it on your own with the

united nations without israel as a partner as if saying that the impediment is just the state that's here let's do this hand in hand without negotiations without us as a partner to do a one sided to impose it on israel and they feel the strong need to give a response as an israeli i can say that has to do with domestic politics personally i don't necessarily adhere to that stop i think you've heard a lot of criticism here in israel in linking it in such a way that is also about politics but of course usual maybe not helping the other could be said on top of the and i was with the settlements also announced is not going to hold over a hundred million dollars of aid to the palestinians to pay back debts to israeli companies is that really an option when of course you've got the world's largest refugee populations on your doorstep well that refugee population is something that needs to be taken care of and the case but i'm looking at these as part of the last four years the decision that was made on thursday from my point of view is an

israeli was anti israel not just pro palestinian i want to see something which is a win win situation one that's both pro palestinian that goes towards an end and then state not just in rhetoric not just in regulations but in actuality and to do so those same palestinians kevin house to come to the negotiation table for the last four years they have refused to do so they've refused time and again and we're all aware of that it was one of the main reasons that the forty states did abstain from the vote on thursday did so because of that rejection of israel it isn't just about being pro palestine it's also about accepting israel here and that's where we need to go. egyptians are supposed to decide on their new constitution in two weeks time but if this last week was anything to go by won't be easy there was widespread anger as the president grant himself sweeping new powers while supreme court judges couldn't rule on the legitimacy of the draft charter after supporters of mohamed

morsi stop them getting into the chamber courts now suspended his work indefinitely in protest is out his tongue battling cairo. unrest returns to the streets after the revolution that toppled hosni mubarak after the election that brought in mohamed morsi egypt is in turmoil once again these round the clock protests have been going on for over a week now it resembles early two thousand and eleven when hosni mubarak was removed from power but that was nearly two years ago shouldn't the revolution have ended by now the mood on top risk where became defiant again after last week's to creep president morsi meaning his decisions would face new legal challenge we had the revolution to get rid of a tyrant the dictator. in in order to that we made elections and that evolution and with elections to choose someone to the present us and turned out that this guy is also

a tyrant himself however morsi claims his new powers are only temporary he nor any of the big kid two in the world here close to you will tell you it is a temporary thing it is full immersion see it told us the serious the same thing sixty years of war under president obama and we stayed under emergency law for seventy years opponents say egypt's new constitution is too islamist and could set the country on the road to religious dictatorship but some sections of society are keen to show their support for morsi and their scorn for judges who would block the constitution knowing he would support the president morsi from so patient by a defeat for his opposition from the constitutional court. or most of us more. since it is the most you. got elected by the people when it was at the fight for. the rifts in society are undeniable and perhaps more even than or for a tarion ism this fear is that chaos will tear apart any gains made by the

revolution this is something new in egypt that's why it's it's more sort of coming in a way where you find that people are facing each other in the streets in the ministrations and facing that type of violence from islamic groups egypt's president its government its courts its very constitution on now matters of heated debate one of the few things moved to gyptian do seem to agree on after the long night of mubarak a new day is proving elusive tom bottom. president morsi claims his almost absolute power is temporary but some observers are warning that egyptians can expect further oppression from the post mubarak regime the fact of the matter is that everything is going in the opposite direction of what the revolution is called for the constituent assembly itself is a reflection of how unwilling to share power the muslim brotherhood are and along with mohamed morsi. he says that he will get back powers as soon as

a parliament is elected but he's not allowing the gyptian to share in writing the constitution so this to me seems like a false promise about giving back power because the one thing he can do is allow dictions to write their own constitution and share power and he's not doing that the judiciary have been a tool for the mubarak regime but if we come to think of it when people protested mubarak they were protesting police brutality and we see that morsi is giving promises to the police that they will act with impunity and does not want to bring anyone to justice for the crimes they've done. during the sun she's promising some new shock revelations to rival the hundreds of thousands of secret diplomatic cables published by wiki leaks two years ago in an interview with us at r.t. the editor of the whistle blowing web site also claims the us is becoming a totalitarian state with the help of social media the problem is that all the time everyone nearly everything they do on the internet is permanently recorded every

web search to know what you were thinking one year two days three months ago you don't know but google knows it remembers the national security agency intercepts the request if it flowed over u.s. border it knows will be. national security agency whistleblower who was the research head of the national security agency's signals intelligence division describes this as turning key totalitarianism that all the infrastructure has been built for absolute totalitarianism it's just a matter of turning the key and actually the case has already been turned a little bit and it's now affecting people who are targeted for us drone strikes organizations like wiki leaks. national security reporters who are having their sources investigated is already partly turned and you know the question is will it will go all the way.

and just quick reminder for you can watch the full interview during a sound streaming whenever you want to see it on our website r.t. dot com. you know as something private bradley manning the man charged with hunting of a classified u.s. documents to wiki leaks spoke out for the first time in over two years saying he considered suicide while in detention hearing his pretrial hearing the twenty four year old said his detention conditions triggered anxiety attacks that made him want to hang him self manning's been locked up now for more than nine hundred days the longest pretrial detention of a u.s. soldier since the vietnam war chase made a lawyer and author of a book called manning says the imprisoned private provokes a mixed reaction from the military both opinion in the military and intelligence and law enforcement is quite divided about this i am not going to lie most people in the military have a very strict by the book attitude towards many of the rules not all the rules but many and would like to see that you convicted but i have talked with infantry one

of whom who is caught on camera at that infamous collateral murder how a cup your video who sees bradley manning is a hero who sees the leaks of the iraq war logs including i don't look up your video as an unqualified good because now americans can finally see how that war is actually going in ditto for the afghan war logs there are also people in the f.b.i. who think such a thing is weak in weeks is very good for national security and including the former director of the minneapolis office of the f.b.i. foley roundly who is the time magazine person of the year two thousand and two and i have a long interview in my book with a former top cia analyst bring the governor who also sees that sir public knowledge of this benefit to the public affairs our war is to be in good so there is disagreement that the military and intelligence communities about this. just ahead

tonight reporting on the election turnout tumbled in kuwait it seems the only cost paid off in a few minutes will tell you why changing the rules has enraged the votes this time the prime minister the press in a public paid for blood to downing i think some quote he says britain's free media needs to be brave with regulation. waves of corruption are rocking russia hundreds of millions of dollars vanished from apec building projects and russia's got a nice satellite project a real estate scandal has also led to the defense minister being fired note i said fire in russia we hear a lot about corruption scandals and the reaction is usually a firing or a forced resignation and maybe that would be ok another country but russia has big

dreams in a big country that is big corruption spoiling all of those dreams a country can't survive with every infrastructural or scientific project is so dry from within whether the government is unwilling or unable to sternly punch these offenders is a huge topic by could tell you that if there's no real fear of punishment this will just keep going on for ever perhaps it's time to put a big asterisk for high level corruption next to the moratorium on the death penalty but that's just my opinion.

this is the weekly on r.t. . government counted as one the lion's share of seats in parliament after saturday's election but the islamist led opposition which boycotted the vote in the turnout was as low as twenty six percent dismissing the lawmaking body therefore as

a legitimate the opposition protests until the u.s. backed monarchy dissolved parliament. reports from the gulf state. well voting in kuwait's highly controversial elections may be over but the battle over the country's political future has only just begun lots of new faces in the newly elected parliament which is deemed to be far more government friendly than the previous assembly but that is because the opposition didn't front any candidates in a boycott of the vote that the protest was deemed to be a success with official estimates of placing voter turnout at roughly thirty nine percent in stark contrast to the sixty percent voter turnout that we've seen in the last three elections in this country the opposition claims the turnout was in fact much lower and in its eyes the new body is illegitimate in fact they told the new assembly on constitutional and according to the popular committee of four boycotting election votes the new body doesn't represent the majority of the kuwaiti people and has lost popular and political legitimacy the question is of

course whether the opposition is now going to take its battle to the streets and whether the monarchy will respond with a heavy hand now what happens here in kuwait has implications far beyond the country's borders as an opec member any sort of on a rest is bound to have an effect on world oil prices the country also serves as a hub for the pentagon's ground forces with thousands of american combat troops stationed here as a military counterweight to iran now the gulf monarchies as a whole have been struggling to stave off the effects of the arab spring with varying degrees of success kuwait is largely seen as the most tolerant of all the trees but the worry here is that the trend could be reversed over the past few months the country has seen increasingly violent escalating protests between the opposition and security forces with the latter using tear gas stun grenades and rubber bullets to disperse crowds political parties are banned as are political gatherings of more than twenty people and activists are claiming of a clamp down against dissent here in this country authorities did allow thousands

of the opposition demonstrators to gather in a largely peaceful rally on. friday of course the coming weeks are bound to test the limits of the government's tolerance as well as the self-control of the opposition what happens here in kuwait could very well write the next chapter of the arab spring this is caffein up r.t. relates some analysts said kuwait's regime will have staying power as long as it enjoys the support that comes of being a key u.s. ally but the most important element in all of this is whether or not the opposition is able to stand up against this family the ruling class the ruling class in kuwait and most importantly standing against u.s. imperialism kuwait in and of itself is not terribly important but when seen in the context of the g.c.c. and seen as one of the most reliable u.s. allies particularly juxtaposed against what is happening in bahrain and we understand that the united states and the western powers cannot allow the saw

family to fall you have to see that kuwait is a launching point in a possible war against iran so all of these taken together really shows that the united states has both political geo political and then of course social reasons why they want to maintain the status quo. britain's free press learned it could face its toughest regulation three hundred years in the week he crossed the line when called her king the voice mails of royalty celebrities the murder victim of his party boy reports now on the inquiry that expose the city relationship between the papers the police the politicians. revelations the british press. a wave of public revulsion and one of the big scandals. at the time for. not just story. but downing street as well as the allegations went all the way to the heart the british government to douse the flames number ten ordered the creation of the leveson inquiry in order to

investigate the claims and now two years in the making after a chorus line of celebrity witness says and millions in taxpayers' money the leveson report damning about the press and heavily critical of both the police and the government for what it says was their cozy relationship with the media cameron has been shown with a hunt to have been actually batting for the murdoch empire was part of all of this so you know i think you know there used to be a bit more of a focus on the five years of the police to actually do anything about these criminal acts lord leveson his recommendation is for highest standards of self-regulation by the press in forced by legislation and that's what critics fear could stifle the already declining newspaper industry and deal a huge blow to the freedom of the press in the u.k. is that any way in which you can be a little bit sensitive or a little bit monitor that. most people say no with britain now in the midst of

a post leveson hangover is the country's two top politicians who are likely to be the most embarrassed david cameron might be suffering from some uncomfortable flashbacks back in october the prime min. promised to support the leveson recommendations as long as they went bonkers cut to last week i have some serious concerns and misgivings on this recommendation they break down into issues of principle practicality and but david cameron's change of heart regarding the inquiries findings would be causing him half the headache that nick clegg might be nursing at the moment the liberal democrat deputy prime minister used to talk about liberal democracy a labor previous cessna's will be remembered as the government who took your freedoms away we want to be remembered as the ones who gave them but not anymore here he is off to leveson published their report i have always said that i would

support lord justice leveson reforms providing they are proportionate and workable and i will come on to why i believe that is the case as far as the report's corporate core proposal is concerned namely a tougher system of so for a glacial supported by new independent checks recognised in law recent polls suggest that over two thirds of britons have little or no faith in the newspaper industry anymore and with revelations about the strong links between the police the politicians and the media it's not only trust in fleet street that's. going to be the word you know obviously we've been very worried about his press sometimes i think it's always gone on but we should keep an eye on it and be aware of it. with opinions raging for and against new legislation it's turning into a no win situation for those in power by questioning the results of the inquiry david cameron looked to his critics like he abandoned the victims of media

intrusion for some good press which is what got the government in trouble in the first place polly boyko r t london explosions in syria's western. the city of homs have killed at least seven people and left more than thirty injured in this blast happened near a mosque in a stadium witnesses say there were two separate car bomb attacks it's fair the number of dead could rise too with many of the wounded in a critical condition tonight it comes amid reports that syrian warplanes have hit rebel targets in the suburbs of damascus where fighting between militias and regime troops have been raging for months now. that is just weak gruesome footage was apparently showing syrian rebels killing ten and prisoners as they cleaned for their lives on the gulf referencing the tightening. which is behind several some south attacks in the country meantime internet and phone access across it was cut off for two days in the week and while the opposition widely blamed the assad government for the information blockade news outlets patrick henningsen told me it

fundamentally benefited those backing the rebel militia. the other a massive problem again with syria and we've had this problem from the beginning which is the skewing of information coming out of the country the syrian observatory for human rights was responsible for a lot of the usual bogus claims that allowed the west to sort of justify the backing of the for you syrian army terrorist groups leaders of our western countries particularly nato countries or encouraging the syrian terrorist rebels guerrillas whatever you want to call them to really accelerate the bloodbath in that country because in the eyes of washington and london the bigger the blood out the quicker they can have reaching change just a report just came out this week with a supplying satellite units to rebels rebel groups terrorist groups essentially in syria so they can communicate while the internet is down to their country there was an initially sold in the media on places like the washington post as

a move by the assad government possibly to shut down rebel communications but actually upon further investigation it looks like it's possible that actually the combination of the united states operatives and the syrian rebels could actually be behind the bringing down the internet and the reason is is because if the blood escalates country the last thing that the west wants is any reports coming out on the internet of actual rebel terrorist atrocities in that country atrocities that we've seen quite a bit of recently. i had the rub between moscow and helsinki over the seizure of russian children by finnish social services is our next report.

you can tell an ordinary russian and a siberian appalled in the blink of an eye wrote. to the public just in those days siberians were different clothes eight different food. different animals. but what about now my journey began in two men but the big city was all shiny all funded skyscrapers and shopping malls much like any other prosperous russian outpost. so i decided to travel to. a small town just outside. many these humble me dumplings came from here to dominate the russian cuisine but only in siberia to put them in super bowl filled with cabbage and jam making sure you can have too many as a starter main dish. although

it may draw the odd of a mole of a most people in siberia see nothing wrong with hunting only if you decide to participate. when you look upon martin. as in the middle of a swamp only accessible by air transport in the summer months and winter a clip to the dogs. it's inhabited by siberian a large muslim minority that migrated had before the russians. and this. israel siberia maybe not the stuff of tourist brochures but distinctive enough to show that after all these years cyber is still not quite like

anywhere else. for a child to be taken from a family something really serious an extraordinary must happen. social services here or in no way worse when the finnish system has decided something there is nothing that can be done it's not a mistake of them it's just how they work. they don't take away child without reason a child does not belong to his parents but to the states. when they bore me here the policeman asked me many times does your mum abuse you my said no she didn't.